I'm a libertarian, so if you mean fiscal conservative then I'm that. But I'm consistent, I want my government out of my wallet AND my bedroom and I want it out of everyone else's crap.
Government controls the value of the money in your wallet. You have to pay taxes. It's the cost of living in this country. (Personally, I believe tax dollars are wasted on items we shouldn't have to pay for.) As far as government being in your bedroom, just don't set up a meth lab and don't murder anyone in that room and government will leave you alone.
I'm curious how you know it's not true since you just said you have no evidence either way.
It's an ignorant sweeping generalization. All teachers are underachievers in college? Allow me to enlighten you a moment. Teachers aren't attending college and getting useless Lesbian Dance Theory Degrees. They are getting education degrees and they are having to pass courses in the very subjects they will be teaching. Then they have to jump through even more hoops, including taking the CLAST. (which is no picnic.) Then they have to take even MORE courses on classroom management, African American management in the classroom, and yes, there is such a thing. They'll probably have to take extra course in transgenderism if there isn't some sanity deployed soon. When they are certified to teach public school (and I'm only speaking for Florida public schools) they have had to spend a lot of money and pass a lot of courses. And NONE of that prepares them for their first day in front of the students.
Also, why do we need to raise wages to get better teachers if teachers are already highly educated and got good grades as you claim?
I NEVER said we need to raise wages to get better teachers. That's a total insult to the teachers who are working the system today. What I did say is that we should pay for what we're getting. If the product is improving (which happens when a teacher gets more experience) the product is worth more. And when a larger job load is put on the teacher, it's only fair that the money be adjusted upward. HELL, MCDONALDS EVEN DOES THAT WITH ITS [Unwelcome language removed] MORON BURGER FLIPPERS WHEN THEY MANAGE TO GET BETTER AT THEIR JOBS, AND THESE ARE IDIOTS WHO DROPPED OUT OF HIGH SCHOOL. Are you going to suggest the county should treat teachers any worse?
OK, that's a nonsense argument and fails basic logic. I said that their pay isn't bad when factored for all the time off they get.
You're trying to change the subject. (Funny, libertarians used to be a lot more intelligent in the early 90s, back when they were the party of the Andre Marrous and Ron Pauls.) I'm saying if a teacher's work load is increased, the money should be increased. You should pay for what you get, just like in ANY other line of work.
You came back with an anecdotal argument that teachers in one county can't afford to pay the cost of living.
Liberals use the term "anecdotal" when they are calling someone a liar. You aren't fooling anyone.
That doesn't contradict my point, Holmes. Why would we pay teachers more money because they want it? If they can't live on a less than full year round job, then yes, they need to get a full time year round job
I never said we should increase pay based on want or need. You are lying about what I said. And you are misunderstanding my point about Lee County. There is a shortage of teachers there because of FREE MARKET ECONOMICS. (Something you libertarians used to know a lot about.) These highly educated individuals are quitting the profession and moving on, creating this shortage. It is the most textbook example of the law of supply and demand. It's entirely possible that even more teachers will quit the profession there unless the money is increased. That'll just mean more sub shifts for me, so I'm not complaining. I don't have kids in the system there, so I'll just benefit from the greed of the county commissioners.
I agree with you on that parents are a problem. In Connecticut, we lived in a district with one of the top public schools in the country. It was rare in parent teacher conferences that a kid didn't have two parents there. Even if they were divorced. Parents are huge.
Today's parents are lazy shits. They aren't doing their jobs. They aren't socializing their little monsters. They aren't even buying the [Unwelcome language removed] supplies for their little brats. They leave it all up to the teacher to do their job as parent. That has always been my chief complaint of the public school system, that more and more lazy assed parents are using it as a giant warehouse, a taxpayer financed free daycare center for their brats, so they can sit home on their fat asses and watch soaps all day long.
But you're still not addressing the reality that the teachers are the ones in the classroom and it's ridiculous that you're absolving them of all responsibility.
Once again, you have lied about what I've said. The problem is teachers are getting more and more responsibilities, more job burdens, more crowded classrooms where half the kids are [Unwelcome language removed] hellhounds and NO corresponding increase in pay. There's NO other business out there who could hold on to employees with that kind of management.
We have the most expensive schools in the world, and the worst performing in the west. The LAST thing we should be talking about now is spending even MORE money on it. Pure bilch.
What you apparently don't understand is WHERE the money is coming from. MOST of the funding for schools, including the decision for teacher pay is done at the COUNTY level, and is subject largely to the value of the real estate in the area. You can't paint ALL public schools with the same brush because each individual county is almost like a separate country. It is totally ignorant to lump ALL public schoolteachers in America into the same basket when even the job requirements vary according to county. You're trying to generalize and over simplify the problem. And your FEDERAL tax dollars are contributing less than .07 percent to education funding in this country. More money comes from the state level and MOST money comes from the county.
You need a better story than it's the parents thought, the teachers have nothing to do with it, and we need to pay the teachers more. That makes no sense at all.
Again, if all you're going to do is lie about what I said, don't get upset if I call you on it. You're not going to get away with that shit, not with me. I'm not linking parental incompetence to teacher pay. That's just [Unwelcome language removed] IGNORANT. What I've said over and over again, is the fact that if ANY employee gains experience and does a better job, and if ANY employee has more and more responsibilities and work loads dumped on him/her, then he/she should get more money. I'm in the system. I see it. I NEVER said teachers were perfect.
Hell, I get more and more sub shifts because teachers are constantly pulled out of class for one bullshit meeting after another, always from some idiotic mandate from some ass sniffing Beltway hack trying to look important. It adds to the teacher's work load and takes away time from grading papers, lesson prep (which is VERY complicated). They have to make UP that work even though they were pulled out of class because of some [Unwelcome language removed] hack's ego trip.
Now if you're ready for a reality check, (and I'm still wondering if you're still floating in that Never Never Land of Libertarianism, where everyone aspires for Galt's Gulch, totally ignoring human nature entirely) here it is:
(And I'm putting this in pure FREE MARKET ECONOMICS terms, where I hope you'll have the libertarian education to grasp.)
Teachers claim they are dedicated to their jobs. Some of the more naive ones claim they don't do it for the money. Those are usually the ones who bail out first. And they have college degrees which make career change a lot easier. So they leave
Kids still show up at schools. In certain counties in Florida (Lee in particular) families are showing up in DROVES. The schools are being FLOODED with students but local property owners are bitching about the property taxes they're having to pay right now, much less any talk of increasing that tax to cover the higher costs of bringing in more students.
AND that doesn't include the children of ILLEGAL ALIENS, who put the greatest pressure on the school system by not being able to speak English. More kids. Fewer teachers.
And state law REQUIRES each classroom have a teacher or a sub. (You should have seen the Emails used to recruit me, because of my experience in Orange and Charlotte Counties. I sometimes wonder if I had held out if they would have bought me a few prostitutes as an incentive.)
Do the math. More money HAS to be allocated to public schools because the client base is increasing exponentially. More teachers are needed. Lee County is BEGGING for more teachers, and so far not that many are applying for work. Schools are legally unable to turn students away.